Council tax payers in Oxford should not have to foot the bill for the city's park and ride system, writes Andrew Ffrench.

That is the view of the city council's ruling Liberal Democrat and Green groups, who today agreed the latest round of cuts totalling 1.7m.

They say the county council should pay a greater share of the cost of running park and ride car parks. Liberal Democrat council leader Corinna Redman said: "We are going to consult on increasing the parking charge from 50p to 1.

"The reason we are doing that is because the city council tax payers are subsiding park and ride security and operational costs to the tune of about 800,000 a year.

"People in the city do not use park and ride, so they will not object."

The move sparked alarm today at County Hall, where environmental services director David Young called for talks. "I would be concerned by a rise of this magnitude," he said.

Paul Ingram, city council Green group leader, said the aim was to cut the city's contribution to park and ride by 225,000 a year.

He added: "The objective is to ensure that people in Abingdon, Witney and Bicester are motivated to get the bus , not get in their car and drive to the park and ride."

The other cuts include:

*Fourteen redundancies, mainly leisure service managers, plus three staff redeployed and 13 posts, currently unfilled, to be scrapped

*Ceasing to fund two union convenor posts worth 20,000 a year each.

Cllr Redman added: "We listened to the public and did not cut concessionary fares and grants to organisations like the CAB."

Martin Gregory, of the city council Unison branch, described the 30 job cuts as "vindictive".

City Labour group leader Alex Hollingworth said: "Putting up park and ride charges goes against the Oxford Transport Strategy."

Roger Rosewell, of the Rescue Oxford (Rox) campaign said: "Once again it's an example of the council looking at how many toes it has and shooting one off.

"It's not only damaging to retailers, it puts off families and clobbers commuters. In other cities the park and rides are deliberately kept cheap to be an attractive alternative."

Frank Watson, chairman of the Broad Street Retailers Association, said: "I would urge them not to put up the car park charges."